Lulzsec hackers go down

Posted May 17, 2013 - 06:33
by
Nick Farrell

Three members of the hacktivist group LulzSec have been sentenced to 24-30 months in a UK jail.

According to the Guardian, Ryan Ackroyd, Ryan Cleary, Jake Davis and Mustafa al-Bassam had been charged with attacks on the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), Sony, Nintendo, 20th Century Fox and governments and police forces in a 50-day spree in the summer of 2011.

Davis was sentenced to two years in a young offender's institution. Al-Bassam received a 20-month sentence, suspended for two years and 300 hours unpaid work. Ackroyd was given a 30-month sentence.

Cleary also pleaded guilty to possession of child abuse images following a second arrest on 4 October, 2012. He will be sentenced separately.

LulzSec put a fake front page on The Sun'swebsite claiming News International chief executive Rupert Murdoch had died. It also leaked details of 500,000 Sun readers. Ackroyd was known as 'Kayla', while Davis was the main spokesperson known as 'Topiary'.

Ackroyd was arrested in September 2011, while Davis was charged with unauthorised computer access and conspiracy to carry out a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack in August 2011. ASl-Bassam was not named until he pleaded guilty, due to his age.

The ringleaders were outted to the FBI by LulzSec leader Sabu, who was revealed to have been working as an informant for the bureau in March 2012.

Ryan Cleary was arrested in June 2011, while he was not a member of LulzSec he owned a botnet of 100,000 PCs used by the group. He was sentenced to 32 months in jail.

Judge Deborah Taylor said that the name LulzSec encapsulates their desires to cause embarrassment and disruption, while keeping their own identities hidden.

She said that the accused each played a role during a seven-month online campaign, "using your technical abilities to cause catastrophic losses for amusement".